Iran's President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani has angrily rebuffed the
West, disappointing those who have seen him as the prime mover for
reconciliation with the United States and Europe. This reflects a power
struggle between so-called moderates and radicals in Iran's
revolutionary hierarchy. More important, the ease with which Rafsanjani
slips into hardline rhetoric emphasises the extent to which he, too,
remains in the long shadow of Ayatollah Khomeini.

AT A HASTILY organised press conference at the end of January
President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani struck an uncompromising tone in his
references to the outside world. The timing was significant in that it
marked the 14th anniversary of the revolution which overthrew the Shah.

If the United States wanted better relations with Iran, Rafsanjani
declared, it would have to unfreeze assets frozen after the revolution.
This was a challenge which Rafsanjani evidently did not expect
Washington to take up. Just to be on the safe side, he seemed to
discourage them from doing so. "If the US tries to put aside its
imperialist policies," he declared, "we see no impediment to
establishing a relationship. But I think they will find it difficult to
do so."

Elaborating on his theme (suitable, presumably, for the occasion),
Rafsanjani stressed Iran's victimisation at the hands of foreign
powers. "It is the US that has oppressed us before and after the
revolution" as a result of their "imperialist attitude",
he announced. If Iran had harmed other people in the past, he said with
a sanctimonious note, "then we should also change".

Implicit in the remark is the assumption that Iran is not doing
anything to pose a menace. Rafsanjani brushed aside suggestions that the
country was interested in "exporting revolution". He dismissed
allegations that Iran had aggressive intentions towards its neighbours
as "devilish publicity", contrasting the value of Saudi
Arabia's order for Tornado combat aircraft with Iran's total
defence budget for "two to three years".

The injured defensiveness, however, sat uneasily with
Rafsanjani's apparently provocative reaffirmation before foreign
journalists of the death sentence pronounced by Ayatollah Khomeini in
February 1989 against Salman Rushdie, the British author of The Satantic
Verses. "Nothing can change the fatwa |pronouncement~ because the
leader of the revolution is now dead and he cannot change the
verdict," Rafsanjani stated. "Only the person who issued it is
the person who can change it."

Rafsanjani's outspoken hardline attitude came as something of a
surprise. Only a few months ago he was reportedly so eager to seek
better relations with the West that he considered sending a message of
congratulations to President-elect Bill Clinton. He is known to be eager
to encourage Western investment and technology transfer to Iran. So why
the harshness of his language?

One theory is that Rafsanjani is being outmanoeuvred in the intricate
world of Iranian politics by his radical critics. Only days before
Rafsanjani's press conference, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who
succeeded Khomeini as Iran's spiritual leader, thundered that there
could be no reconciliation with the "enemies and arrogants" in
the West, describing the Americans (in the pointedly familiar term of
Khomeini's) as "wolves". Iran, he declared, should not
sacrifice its revolutionary principles for the sake of aid or
technology.

In recent months, Khamenei has been strongly critical of the United
States. Rafsanjani has warned against expecting the United States to
disavow its endemic hostility. The difference in phraseology is subtle,
the former desperately anxious to emphasise Iran's rejection of all
things Western, the latter keen to make it known that the gulf between
the two sides is basically of America's making. But the fact that
both feel obliged to express their views in terms of the antagonism
which divides Iran and the West is indicative of the enduring legacy of
Khomeini.

Rafsanjani has not lived up to hopes of instituting a
"post-Khomeini" era of the Iranian revolution since 1989. He
was elected president that year in a bid to provide the clerical regime
with a modern management of affairs, particularly in the economic
sphere, which might end Iran's isolation from the rest of the world
while retaining its revolutionary purity at home.

Elections to a new majlis, the national assembly, took place in April
last year, and seemed to guarantee Rafsanjani's stamp on
government. Appearances proved illusory. The very next month, the city
of Mashhad erupted in riots which have afflicted Tehran and several
provincial cities. Protestors were demonstrating against all the social
and economic grievances which have grown out of the revolution and which
Rafsanjani's reforms were meant to tackle. The response of Islamic
courts was to mete out summary executions.

At the same time, the supposedly compliant majlis has turned out to
be as disputatious and immobile as its predecessors. Far from bringing
the regime's policies closer into tune with economic realities, it
has maintained a religious respect for the tenets of the revolution.
Nowhere was this more amply demonstrated than legislation giving the
basijis, the "volunteers" drawn from the poor and the
peasantry, a right to 40% of university places, for which by their very
nature they are particularly unqualified.

Such a kneejerk return to the populist roots of the revolution,
regardless of their practical repercussions, flies in the face of any
reforms which Rafsanjani might wish to implement. On the economic front,
he has attempted (and so far largely failed) to invigorate the economy.

But economic liberalisation implies a loosening of political and
cultural control which Khomeini's clerical successors are unwilling
to face. In retrospect, Khomeini so dominated the revolutionary regime
which he brought into being that he suffocated dissent. Economics, he
once notoriously said, was a "matter for donkeys".

Even he, however, towards the end of his days, recognised that some
accommodation had to be made between the principles of theocratic government and the demands of a viable economy functioning in the modern
world.

Had he survived, Khomeini might have been able to give the
imprimateur for Rafsanjani's reforms. His successor, on the other
hand, is a man of considerably less stature. Ali Khamenei, the spiritual
guide who was pushed forward to take over Khomeini's mantle, was
not even an ayatollah, let alone a grand ayatollah, when he assumed his
predecessor's place. His elevation to the leading ranks of the
clerical hierarchy was greeted with astonishment.

It is perhaps notable that one of the few voices raised in protest
has been that of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, once Khomeini's
chosen successor who was forced to step aside as he became increasingly
outspoken at the abuses of the regime. Since his dismissal, he has
retired to teach religious students in Qom.

Earlier this year, he inveighed against the "three or four
boys" (a reference to Rafsanjani, still a relative junior in the
religious ranks, the upstart Khamenei and Khomeini's son, Ahmed)
who, he claimed, were undermining the credibility of Shia Islam's
highest offices. The reportedly enthusiastic reception with which his
outburst was received testifies to widespread disillusionment with the
present leadership.

COPYRIGHT 1993 IC Publications Ltd.
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